Page 124 - FULL BOOK Isata Kanneh-Mason Childhood Tales

Goldberg Variations, which saw musicians and dancers share a stage as equals. Jane
Mitchell, principal flute and creative director, Aurora Orchestra

9. Escape the elitist shoebox and hit the village hall

Ultimately, opera is about the human condition: love, loss, grief, guilt, family. Yet the
situation we’re facing now in the UK is that there’s less opera, and potentially less
opportunity for companies to take risks. Not everyone is going to want to come to
opera, but we need to create an environment where anybody can feel they can. Matthew
Kofi Waldren

Opera is being forced into an elitist shoebox. It can and should be found in village halls
as well as opera houses, but the 30% funding cuts and cultural deficit in education
mean that many communities are unable to experience it. If you remove the education,
then you don’t get the supply of musicians, and the elitism and discrimination opera is
accused of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Singers, too, are suffering. I began my career with the BBC Singers, then worked with
Glyndebourne Touring Opera (not able to tour this year because of ACE cuts) and then
English National Opera. All these avenues have been destroyed or compromised. In
France or Germany, say, opera is not a dirty word. I’m sure not all politicians like pop
music or football, yet they are always happy to be associated with those things. Why not
classical music? Sarah Connolly

The BBC Concert Orchestra playing to an audience of school children at St George’s Hall,
Great Yarmouth. Photograph: Si Barber/The Guardian

10. Put it on prime time – after all, The Piano was a hit
The reason classical music is seen as a luxury is because it’s not readily available on
mainstream media. Channel 4 has just had a surprise hit with The Piano, which
obviously connected on a mass level emotionally. We tend to keep the personalities of
fine artists on a pedestal as if exposing them to the masses might dilute their magical
powers. If Lennie Bernstein could once hold our hand through a piece on primetime
TV, why don’t we encourage a more human connection with the artist
themselves? Nicky Spence, singer and broadcaster